The church age

Fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead, something happened in Jerusalem that changed everything. It's called Pentecost, and it marks the day the church (the family of everyone who follows Jesus), was born.

The prophet Joel had seen it coming centuries earlier: "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (Joel 2:28). It's a strange promise: not the Spirit resting on a few chosen leaders like in the Old Testament, but poured out on everyone: sons, daughters, old, young, servants.

Jesus had already told his disciples this was coming. He said he would build his church, and "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). Before he ascended into heaven, he told them not to rush out and start preaching yet. "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). He'd promised them a Comforter who would "abide with you for ever" (John 14:16): not a temporary visitor, but a permanent presence.

Then it happens. "When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1). The Spirit falls with the sound of wind and what looks like fire resting on each person. Peter, the same man who had denied Jesus weeks earlier, stands up and preaches with such boldness that three thousand people are baptized in a single day (Acts 2:41). The church didn't start with a building or an organization. It started with ordinary people suddenly filled with power they didn't manufacture themselves.

Peter's instruction that day still stands as the doorway into this new family: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:38). Right after, Luke describes what this new community actually looked like: "they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42). Teaching, relationship, shared meals, prayer: the basic shape of church life hasn't really changed since.

What makes the church different from every other gathering of people is what unites it. Paul explains: "by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free" (1 Corinthians 12:13). This was radical in the ancient world. Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free citizens, men and women: all placed into the same body by the same Spirit. "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling" (Ephesians 4:4).

Paul gives this body a head: "he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead" (Colossians 1:18). The church isn't just a human institution running on its own steam. It's connected to Christ himself, drawing life and direction from him.

This age (from Pentecost until Christ returns), is sometimes called the church age, and it's the age every reader of this page is living in right now. It's not a waiting room. It's the time when the gospel goes out to "the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8), when ordinary believers carry the same Spirit that filled the apostles.

The Bible's last book ends this age looking forward to its close, with an invitation still going out: "the Spirit and the bride say, Come" (Revelation 22:17). The church exists between two moments (the Spirit poured out at Pentecost, and Christ's return), carrying his message forward until he does.